Google For India: YouTube Brings LMS-Style ‘Courses’ For Creators

In a bid to ease how edtech creators disseminate content, YouTube has launched ‘Courses’ during the Google For India 2022 event. 

While the tech giant will provide more details later, on a preliminary look, the ‘Courses’ feature is a learning management system (LMS) style element integrated into the YouTube app. 

It will allow creators to monetise their content, and offer free and paid courses in a structured learning experience. Furthermore, learners can also choose to watch a course ad-free with their existing YouTube premium subscriptions.

The feature will come out in 2023, YouTube India head Ishan Chatterjee said during the Google For India 2022 event.

“In 2021, YouTube’s creative ecosystem supported more than 750K full-time jobs and contributed INR 10,000 Cr to India’s GDP,” Chatterjee said during the event. 

“As a part of YouTube learning, ‘Courses’ will soon be available on YouTube in India and will enable new monetisation options for creators,” he added.

Talking more on the lines, he said that learning has been a priority for YouTube and the company is already the largest platform for learning and skilling content around the world. India, on the other hand, had a dearth of videos (60 Mn+ to be precise). 

Thus, with India on its primary agenda, YouTube Courses will start a pilot by offering courses on digital, professional, entrepreneurial, personal passion and skills. It will gradually expand into the above-mentioned categories after seeking feedback for the feature. 

The company added that it will work on a revenue-sharing model with the creators, who will now be able to provide viewers with supplemental materials such as documents, images, PDFs and more. Monetisation will be similar to what YouTube does with other content creators, a 45-55 revenue sharing.

YouTube Courses pits the video-sharing platform against the likes of Unacademy, BYJU’S, Vedantu, upGrad and more. Interestingly, most of these platforms began their journeys on YouTube. 

An interesting observation here to make is, while India’s edtech space has been in turmoil, with the opening up of schools and colleges; the popularity of YouTube, as a learning platform has been unwavering.

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